Dutch mobile euthanasia units to make house calls: new scheme will respond to sick people whose own doctors have refused to help them end their lives at home

This story by Kate Connolly in the Guardian is almost too chilling to believe. It’s like some kind of scare story that has been dreamt up by anti-euthanasia propagandists in order to discredit the whole concept of mercy killing. But – as far as I can learn from browsing the net – it’s true. I’ll just let the story speak for itself. My only comment is to note with gratitude that there are at least some doctors in the Netherlands who ‘refuse to help their patients to die’.

Here is the first section of the main report:

A controversial system of mobile euthanasia units that will travel around the country to respond to the wishes of sick people who wish to end their lives has been launched in the Netherlands.

The scheme, which started on Thursday , will send teams of specially trained doctors and nurses to the homes of people whose own doctors have refused to carry out patients’ requests to end their lives.

The launch of the so-called Levenseinde, or “Life End”, house-call units – whose services are being offered to Dutch citizens free of charge – coincides with the opening of a clinic of the same name in The Hague, which will take patients with incurable illnesses as well as others who do not want to die at home.

The scheme is an initiative by the Dutch Association for a Voluntary End to Life (NVVE), a 130,000-member euthanasia organisation that is the biggest of its kind in the world.

“From Thursday, the Life End clinic will have mobile teams where people who believe they are eligible for euthanasia can register,” Walburg de Jong, a NVVE spokesman, said.

“If they do comply, the teams will be able to carry out the euthanasia at patients’ homes should their regular doctors be unable or refuse to help them,” he added.

The Netherlands was the first country to legalise euthanasia in 2002 and its legislation on the right to die is considered to be the most liberal in the world.

But doctors cannot be forced to comply with the wishes of patients who request the right to die and many do refuse, which was what prompted NVVE to develop a system to fill the gap.

Sick people or their relatives can submit their applications via telephone or email and if the patient’s request fulfils a number of strict criteria, the team is then dispatched.

Legal guidelines state that the person must be incurably sick, be suffering unbearable pain and have expressed the wish to die voluntarily, clearly and on several occasions.

According to De Jong, the team will make contact with the doctor who has refused to help the patient to die and ask what his or her reasons were.

More often than not, he said, the motivations are religious or ethical, adding that sometimes doctors were simply not well enough informed about the law.

If the team is satisfied that the patient’s motives are genuine, they will contact another doctor with whom they will start the euthanasia process.

“They will first give the patient an injection, which will put them into a deep sleep, then a second injection follows, which will stop their breathing and heart beat,” De Jong said.

Every year 2,300 to 3,100 mercy killings are carried out in the Netherlands, although opponents of the practice claim the figure is much higher because many cases are not registered.

One Response

This whole thing is sick. The NVVE blurb reads, to me, as though they are selling a commodity. I wonder what the gains are for those who participate. After all, Doctors and Nurses have to be paid – sorry that sounds very cynical. It also seems a very ghastly business for a charity to be engaged in.
My main concern is where this will end. Once laws have been passed allowing terminally ill people to elect to end their lives, it is only a matter of time before the law is changed to allow those with incurable (but not terminal) conditions to do the same. The list of these conditions is endless.
I hope the Catholic Church in the Netherlands is leading the way in opposing this dreadful practice.

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Looking across the landscape of contemporary culture - at the arts, science, religion, politics, philosophy; sorting through the jumble; seeing what stands out, what unsettles, what intrigues, what connects, what sheds light. Father Stephen Wang is a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Westminster, London. He is currently Senior University Chaplain, based at Newman House Catholic Chaplaincy. [Banner photo with kind permission of Matthew Powell]

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